Is there a quick way to find tasks?

April 27, 2016

Q: Is there a quick way to find tasks?
I have large schedules and would like to know how I can find specific tasks (i.e. if duration or start time is greater than certain value.

A: There is a Find feature in RiskyProject located on the Schedules tab of the Ribbon. To find activities that meet specific criteria, open the Find dialog box by click the binoculars icon in the Schedule>Zoom and Find group.

The Find dialog box opens. The find dialog box allows you to search all data by columns and highlight all activities that meet the requirement. For example, if you wanted to find any tasks with a duration of more than 20 days in your current schedule. You could set up the search criteria as shown in the example below. The “tests” that are available will allow you to search for activities on any of the data types supported in RiskyProject.

For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1246

Activities are converted to Must Start on when imported

April 27, 2016

Q: Activities are converted to Must Start on when imported
When I import my schedule using the Addin all of my activities are set to “Must Start On” in RiskyProject, even though they are “ASAP” in MSP? Is there a reason for this?

A: There are two reasons why activities will be set to Must start on when you import them into RiskyProject.

The first is when the projects are in progress and have been statused. In these tasks, their start time is fixed, so when they are imported into RiskyProject, they are read as “Must start on”. This is logical as there is now no uncertainty about when the activity will start.

The second case is when activities are manually scheduled. Manually scheduling allows you to drag activities either start date, finish date and durations regardless of the precedent relationships.. This is a very useful feature, but it relaxes the logic that allows the schedule to be updated manually. What that means is that if you have an activity with a FS link to a successor and you move the Finish Date back, this will not automatically update the successor. In practice, it fixes the activity parameters unless you update them manually in that they will not be pulled or pushed by predecessors. When you import the manually scheduled activities into RiskyProject, it interprets these activities as having hard “Must start on” constraints because they are unaffected by any changes to predecessors.

To fix this, once you have settled on your project schedule, set all of the activities Task Mode to Auto Scheduled.

For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1245

How do tasks and task deadlines affect task success rates

April 27, 2016

Q: How do tasks and task deadlines affect task success rates

Are the task success rates only affected by deadlines, or are there any other conditions which can affect it?

A: Task success rates are impacted by several different factors.

The first is task deadlines. In this case the success rate is a function of how often a task does not exceed a task deadline. In the Task Information > Deadlines tab you can set deadlines for tasks. Tasks deadlines can have 3 outcomes if the task exceeds the deadline: no impact, end task, and cancel task. Of these the Cancel task outcome will impact the success rate. So if the task exceeds the deadline 30% of the time, it will have a success rate of 70%.

The other success rates measure how often a task is actually executed during a simulation. One through risk outcomes and the other as an output of branching.

Task success rates can be affected is through risk outcomes. When a risk is assigned to a task two of the outcomes can be “cancel task” and “cancel task and all successors”. The simulation will calculate how often a task is cancelled due to the risk and this will impact the success rate.
Finally, if you are using conditional and probabilistic branching, the success rate measures how often specific branches are run which is a function of the conditional or probabilistic criteria used. It is possible that you could have all three of the above impacting the success rates of tasks.
In the branching example below, we can see how success rates (or how often the activities were executed) during the simulation. In addition, Activity 6 – Phase 3 has a deadline (indicated by the red arrow) and as Phase 2b is executed more often and therefore pushing it past the deadline probabilistically, it has a lower success rate. Compare this to activities 12 and 18 which do not have deadlines.


For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1244

How do I see which tasks most impact the project success rate

April 12, 2016

Q: How do I see which tasks most impact the project success rate

In sensitivity view, can I see what activities affect project success rate?

A: Yes, if your project has a last finish time deadline, which is set in the Project Settings, you can view which activities have the most effect on your success rate of meeting the deadline.

To see which activities these are on the ribbon, click Analysis > All Views > Senstivity Analysis. In the Sensitivity Analysis view, select Success Rate from the drop down list at the top. Now, on the bottom, select one of the task parameters (Duration, Start Time, Success Rate). This will show the tasks which have the most impact on the project success rate.

In the example below, we can the sensitivity shows us activities that can have both a negative and positive affect on the project success rate.

For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1243

Does Riskyproject have contingency planning

April 12, 2016

Q: Does Riskyproject have contingency planning

Can I define risks that execute contingency plans ?

A: In RiskyProject, risks can be managed using two processes. The first is a mitigation plan which is one or more activities that will occur before period in which a risk could occur to minimize either the impact or probability of the risk occurring. Mitigation plans are generally created as assigned to risks in the Mitigation Water fall chart.

The second method is the Risk Response plan and allow you to put in place a cost and duration for a plan that will be activated if the risk occurs. For example, if you have a risk of losing a key resource, your contingency plan, would be to find a suitable replacement, which may take time and money. With a response plan you can model the cost and time required by assigning the plan to the risk. Response plans are similar to a risk assignment, in that they can have cost or schedule impacts, but they can be used on multiple risks.

When you run a simulation with risks with response plans, each time the risk occurs in a specific iteration it with add the cost and time of the response plan to your results. At the end of the simulation, the results will include the expected values for cost and duration for each response plan.

For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1241

When should I use resource risks?

April 12, 2016

Q: When should I use resource risks?

What is the difference between assigning risks to resources rather than activities?


A: Risks sometimes associated with specific project resources that are assigned to specific resources. It is possible to assign the risk to all of the activities to which a resource is assigned. However, if you have a risk to a specific resource, for example, the rate, you can quickly assign this cost risk to your project by assigning it to the resource. This risk will then impact all of the activities to which this resource is assigned. Therefore, by assigning a risk to a resource, you can quickly and easily “broadcast” this resource risk to all of it the activities it will impact.

In this example, the risk (uncertainty) of the Drilling Crew’s rate will impact all of the activities to which the Drilling Crew is assigned.


For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1242

Two new articles on Risk Engineering and Project Management

April 11, 2016

Two new articles on Risk Engineering and Project Management

Intaver Institute has published two new articles Risk Engineering and How to Process Project Information. Risk management when viewed from a very high level is really about asking three key questions: what could happen, what would be the impact if it did happen, and what can we do about it? Risk engineering is managing risks in such a way that that you can deliver project value with the least amount of risk. Once you understand this key concept, you can then use risk engineering to understand the causes of the risk and the best approach to minimizing its impact on your key project objectives.

The second article "How to Process Project Information" discusses the nature of information, how it is produced and how we interpret it through our own personal motivations and biases. When managing projects we are constantly inundated with complex and often conflicting information. Much of this information is created or delivered in a manner to persuade you to take certain actions. This article goes over some of the methods that are used to manipulate certain well know human cognitive biases and how to recognize them. Further, it outlines strategies that you can use to counteract this flood of information to ensure you have the clear understanding of your project.

For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/index-news.html

Notification about risk reviews

April 7, 2016

Q: Notification about risk reviews
How can we get notification, that risk review is coming?

A: Risk review frequency is defined individually for each risk. By default it is defined in Risks -> Default Properties. RiskyProject does not send e-mail notifications that review is coming, but if you start RiskyProject you can see review dates of each risk. If risk is up for review, color of review cell in Risk Properties view will change from green to yellow and then from yellow to red. This same color will change in Risk Information dialog box (Properties tab and risk review tab). You would have to go to risk review tab and submit this review. If the review is not submitted, the color will remain red.

For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1240

Merging calendars

April 7, 2016

Q: Merging calendars
I have defined project calendar, the task has specific task calendar and resource assigned to the task has own calendar. What is the rule? What if I have two resources with different calendars assign to the same task? How risk project merge them?

A: Calendars have a precedence logic whereas the Resource calendar > Tasks Calendar > Project Calendar. Therefore in your situation, the resource calendar will override the task calendar unless the “Ignore Resource calendar” option is selected for the activity.
If you have two or more resources each with their own calendar assigned to a task, then the working time is a merger of the two resource calendars. Merging works by overlapping calendar exceptions. For example, if calendar A has Monday day off and calendar B has Wednesday day off, the combined calendar will both day non working. The same is true for hourly exceptions:

For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1239

Number of tasks

April 7, 2016

Q: Number of tasks
How many tasks (resources, etc.) can I import from P6 or MS Project? Are any limits?

A: There is no practical limit as you can theoretically import more than 100,000 - 200,000 tasks. In reality, you are most likely going to run into the limits of your computer (i.e. memory and cpu) where it becomes overloaded and takes extremely long times to respond to commands. If you are using MS Project 2010 or later the Addin allows you to exclude unnecessary data such as notes or custom fields. On very large schedules, this can significantly reduce the computer resources required to run simulations.

For more information please visit: http://www.intaver.com/IntaverFrm/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1238